Trench Warfare - Construction • Estimated over 25, 000 miles • Trenches dug to a height higher than men, about 8 -12’ • Walls reinforced with wood beams and sandbags-revetments • Floor of trench typically covered with wooden slats-duckboards
Trench Warfare - Construction • Shorter ledge built into front of trench to allow shooters to fire rifles/machine guns-firestep • “No Man’s Land” – the land between opposing trenches, usually 100 -300 yards, some areas as little as 16 yards or as much as 2 miles, fortified with barbed wire
No Man’s Land
Trench Warfare - Construction • German trenches were in stark contrast to British trenches. German trenches were built to last and included bunk beds, furniture, cupboards, water tanks with faucets, electric lights, and doorbells
German Trench
Trench Warfare - Life • Often wet, rains would flood trench waist deep • Trenches were muddy, unsanitary • Latrines built into trenches • Flies, maggots, rats, fleas rampant • 1914 coldest winter on record to date, frostbite
Trench Rats
Trench Warfare - Life • Trench Foot-due to cold wet conditions, cells in feet die resulting in gangrene, amputation • Trench Mouth-infection of throat and mouth, gums bleed • Dysentery-intestine disease, unsanitary conditions, fatal • Typhus-infectious disease from rats and fleas, fatal